Farmer Discontent Over Prices, Surpluses

After half a decade of high commodity prices and relative prosperity, American farmers are slipping back into the hole—and they don't like it. Three successive good crop years, not only in the United States but in most countries around the world, have refilled empty storage bins and depressed farm prices to the lowest levels in four years. Farmers who have the facilities are holding grain back from the market. Those who do not are forced to sell at less than the cost of production.

Nationwide, net farm income will barely reach $20-billion this year, down from the all-time high of $33.3-billion in 1973. Adjusted for inflation, the $20-billion is about equal to what American farmers earned in the 1936 depression year. There are far fewer farmers now, and average family income is considerably above depression levels. But so is the cost of living and, even more important, the cost of farmland, machinery, fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides and seeds. Farm debt has doubled since 1970, exceeding $100-billion, for the first time in history, and the end is not yet in sight.

The current farm depression amounts to a substantial political liability for President Carter, who made a strong showing among traditionally Republican farm-bloc voters in the 1976 election. Although farmers do not have the organizational clout of urban labor unions or big business, they are making their voices heard in Washington. A new movement, called American Agriculture, is planning a strike to begin Dec. 14 and its followers threaten not to sell their non-perishable farm goods or to plant spring crops unless the situation changes. “Unless we get one hundred per cent of parity,” said one of the leaders, “we will not sell and next year we will not produce.”